Edit Linked Library

I’d posted this on a bunch of different social media sites but ridiculously forgot to post it here.

Here’s the rationale: When working in larger projects that involve scenes with assets linked from a .blend library, it can get very time-consuming to save your current scene, track down the proper linked .blend, make your modifications, save, and return to your original scene file. This add-on allows you to accomplish this process with only a pair of mouse-clicks (one to get to the linked library and one to resume work on your scene).

You can get the script and play with it from its wiki page (more detailed usage instructions to come).

I’ve found this pretty useful in my own work. Go ahead and play with it. If you find any bugs, you can use the tracker to report them. If you have other problems or suggestions, please share them here.

Edit: This add-on has shipped with Blender by default for a while. However, it’s still getting updates and I love getting feedback from anyone testing it.

This is really great, it will be helpful. I can’t wait to get home and try this out. I hope it become part of blender officially.

Little update to this script (link in the parent is still valid). Now it works with normally linked objects (i.e. objects not linked via group/dupligroup).

Very nice and easy to use, thanks, mib.

Is just wonderful!! God bless you! :smiley:
Thank you!

Update! (v0.7.0)

  • When switching to a linked library for editing, now the referenced object (or the objects in the referenced group) are automatically selected
  • Added a keymap: When a linked object is selected, Numpad-slash (/) takes you to the linked .blend file (same as clicking the Edit Linked Library button in the Tool Shelf). From the linked file, Numpad-slash (/) takes you back to the original file (same as clicking the Return to Original button in the Tool Shelf). This basically extends the metaphor of “local view” to more aptly apply to linked objects. If you select a non-linked object, the original Local View behavior of Numpad-slash (/) works as expected.

A very clever script that has saved me a lot of time and grief. Should really get merged into trunk, it is that useful

thanks, i am testing this one on, blender 2.61, windows 7 x64. rig is proxified. and as soon as i click numpad “/” or button, it opened file. but at once, (same seocnd) come back to orignal file and then this keeps happening. some loop error. may be. eventually, i have to close blender…
is there anything, which i am doing wrong. can u please provide an updated version. as in my case, animation rigs are proxified offcourse…
hope to hear soon and thanks for wonderful addon…

@danilius - very kind words! Thank you.

@lalmax3d - Well that’s certainly new and interesting. My initial guess would be that your keyboard or mouse button might be stuck. Try this: With the add-on disabled, select an object and press Numpad-slash (/). Does your scene switch to local view and stay there, or does it switch back as well? In the meantime, I’ll keep testing on my end to see if I can reproduce the behavior you’re describing.

i like it, I’ll include it in my next builds (if Allah wishes).

Thanks bat3a! That’s awesome of you.

Just a heads-up… This one is now in contrib. Woohoo!

Great job here!

Did a little bit of clean-up on the add-on (had some dangling issues with registering/unregistering).

Also, I made a quick video on usage. I’ve added it to the OP.

Nice. I’ve found one issue however. When you are rendering and then hit “Edit linked Library”, the Render (Cycles) aborts and loads the linked in blend file. I think the button should be disabled in this situation. I’m sure there are also other situations, when such a behavior makes sense.

Very nice. Yep it can be real pain dealing with linked objects on larger scenes. This is just about perfect for that.

That’s understandable. I’ll see what I can do about tweaking it so it’s disabled during render. Blender actually has a surprisingly difficult time knowing whether or not it’s currently rendering (both in C and in Python… the variable for checking that in C is actually a hack and ultimately is intended to be removed/replaced). You can work around it with render callbacks, but I’m not entirely sure that’s a great idea just for a context check on an operator. I’ll ask around and see if there’s a better way.

Fweeb, i have just seen tutorial on this and it looks great, however i can’t find it in blender 2.65 x64 win 7 and i tried to download it again and the same problem happens. Can i install it manually and if so where can i find installation?

I can’t find it in blender 2.65 x64 win 7 can i install it manually?

Are you downloading from the link on the wiki? The add-on has recently been updated by Pablo Vazquez and there was an API change for the upcoming 2.66 release. I’d suggest you try it with the current 2.66 release candidate and see if that works for you.